Gazing at letters that her grandmother wrote from the Warsaw Ghetto before she was killed , Deputy Director of the global organization "Jewish Voice for Peace", Cecilie Surasky, discusses Israel's "anti-Jewish" crimes and the inescapable comparison between the sufferings of Gazans and the gradual crushing of Jewish life in the Nazi ghettos in the period that led to the Final Solution . More significantly, the Jewish activist for peace reveals and explores the relationship between Jewish collective trauma and Israel 's aggression

"Jewish Voice for Peace" is based in the United States of America . Was this choice of location intentional?

We are based in the US and we have one hundred thousand people on our supporter list, mostly in the United States but certainly across Israel , Canada and all over the world. We think it is important to be in the United States because most of the terrible things you see happening in Israel (the expansion of settlements and taking of land, the attack on Gaza , the construction of the wall, attacks on human rights activists) couldn't happen without US support.

We pay for it with billions in aid, we offer Israel diplomatic protection in the UN, and we have many Jewish and Christian Zionist institutional leaders in this country who are very vocal about defending Israel unconditionally. They want the US government to continue to give Israel permission to do whatever it likes including violating international law. And unfortunately, the majority of members of Congress are only too happy to oblige. The U.S. Congress, which is largely made up of Christians by the way, is shamefully committed to giving the Israeli government whatever they want. With relatively few exceptions, they have very little regard for Palestinian life or for Israeli life for that matter since this unconditional support is so destructive to Israel and to Jews everywhere.

That's why we think one of the most important places after Israel , to have a strong and powerful Jewish voice for peace, justice and equality, is in the United States . Once we stop sending billions of dollars in military aid with no strings attached, once we stop diplomatically protecting Israel in international bodies when they violate the law, Israel will have to change. This movement is primarily about accountability and ending the attitude of exceptionalism which allows Israel to consistently violate the human rights of Palestinians, and increasingly its own citizens, with impunity.

At Jewish Voice for Peace, our values are pretty simple: Full equality for Israelis and Palestinians. There is absolutely no difference between the value of life of my 7 year old son and the value of life of my Palestinian friend's child. They are equally precious and have the same rights to health, education, to safety and well-being. Palestinians have a right to land which is justly theirs without having it stolen from beneath their feet. But the Israeli government has absolutely no respect for their rights. New settlements are built every day on Palestinian land. Even president Obama has said this theft of land must stop, but the Israeli government refuses.

Nonetheless, the western media represents Arab life as being less "grievable" than that of a western or Jewish life...

One of the most important things about doing this work is the connections that we make, as Jews, as Muslims, as Arabs or Westerners. And what you discover when you connect on a human basis is that we are remarkably similar. We value the same things. All people really want is to be connected to their family, to have work that means something to them, to have education and joy in their lives. It's very simple when you break it down. I know there is a long history of western racism, colonialism and Orientalism and we see ourselves as being superior to people all over the world. The only way to break down that false thinking to help people connect to each other, and it's a revelation when you do.

One of the things to remember is that the very idea of international law and human rights is a product of WWII. It was institutionalized because of WWII, because of Hitler, because of what happened with the Nazis and to the Jews. And Jews like Rene Cassin were among the pioneers of this idea, that all people are equal and equally deserving of certain basic rights. Today, we know this, whether they are gay, disabled, whether they are black or white or Muslim or Jew: this is the foundational framework for human rights advocacy,

So it is particularly appalling and outrageous to see 60 years later many Jewish organizations actually working to undermine this idea of international human rights. This goes against an incredibly important Jewish tradition and it's a violation of everything we stand for and it's anti-Jewish in the end. There was a time when much of the Jewish institutional world realized that freedom for one person required freedom for all. That if you let bigotry and hatred against one group to stand, eventually it would come and take you. All of our fates are intertwined, let us not forget this. Jewish Voice for Peace is holding onto and celebrating this tradition. We are actively opposed to groups that are trying to undermine international law as a way to keep Israel from being accountable.

Exactly because of your fate as Jews, as a historically hunted people, one would expect that you would be the first to recognize the human rights of Palestinians. ...

How do you deal with people coming and criticizing you for anti-Semitism?

Since we started, we have been getting hate mail and death threats. Some said: "you should have burned in the ovens". Interestingly enough, we get much less of it now, while our movement is growing. I won't lie to you; it has been very difficult to do what we have been doing, because we are also all struggling in our own families. As I have said before, there is not one Jewish family in the world that is not divided on this. But things are changing. What is extremely important is that younger Jews are educating and opening the eyes of the older generation. They go to school, they learn the facts and then they go back home and try to educate their parents. But we need to remember, it's not malicious. It's just that many elderly are closer to the memory of the Holocaust. (We also have many members over 60 who are absolutely clear about supporting Palestinian equal rights.) They lived the horror. It's easier for them to see enemies everywhere. ...

There can be no Jewish liberation without Palestinian liberation. It is so clear. We are enslaved by this dynamic, just as they are. We have become psychologically enslaved to our fear and our bigotry and Jewish Voice for Peace and the Jewish Liberation Movement is struggling to free our community from the grip of fear and trauma and to celebrate the wonderful diversity and richness of Jewish tradition that puts social justice for ALL people back at its center where it belongs.

Palestinians who choose to study and work abroad are finding out - too late - that they have imperiled their right to return to their hometown.

Last Wednesday afternoon a "shabah," an illegal sojourner, sat in the small conference room of Jerusalem District Court Judge Noam Solberg. That's how he was described by Solberg and a representative of the Interior Ministry, attorney Gur Rosenblatt. The illegal resident reads and writes Hebrew, but in the small room he had difficulty following the learned claims of the judge to the effect that a person born in Jerusalem's neighborhood of Sur Baher 43 years ago, whose parents and grandparents and great-great grandparents are from there, who went to elementary school and high school in Jerusalem, who recently paid NIS 120,000 for a construction permit from the Jerusalem municipality, is an illegal sojourner. In other words, a criminal.

Meet the criminal: Dr. Imad Hammada. He's a father of three, with a fourth on the way. Married to a nurse who works for the Leumit HMO in Jerusalem. This biography includes other elements that could sound very Israeli: studied electrical engineering in the United States and worked in Silicon Valley to pay for his doctoral studies and to get experience. Speciality: nanotechnology (a nanometer is one billionth of a meter ). Frequent visits to his family at home, in Jerusalem.

True, his stay abroad lasted longer than expected, from 1989 to 2007. That's familiar to us, too. Now, three months after receiving his doctorate, in August 2007, he and his family packed their suitcases and returned home, a year after he received American citizenship. An Israeli company and an American company with a branch in Israel wanted to employ him and changed their minds. The Interior Ministry informed them that he was a tourist.

Tourist? How come? That is how he discovered that the Interior Ministry had revoked his residency status. Through attorney Leah Tsemel he petitioned the Jerusalem District Court sitting as a Court for Administrative Matters, against the revocation of his permanent residency permit. For the past three years he has been living in his homeland, in his city, in his parents' home - without health insurance for the children, without rights, in constant danger of arrest and expulsion.

"The prolonged illegal stay in the country is to the detriment of the petitioner," said Judge Solberg in a stern voice. He said that it could be a reason for rejecting the petition out of hand. In the corridors of the District Court on Salah al-Din Street it was said that as opposed to liberal judges David Cheshin and Yehudit Tzur, who have left, Solberg is known for summarily rejecting similar petitions. It turns out that this time Solberg had inner conflicts, as he put it.

It's natural to go abroad

On the one hand, he said, the illegal stay causes us "to say that this is a reason for rejecting the petition out of hand." On the other hand, the judge said: "It's natural that people go [abroad] to study and stay for a while. There's room for a certain amount of forgiveness when you read that the man works in Herzliya (for a Taiwanese company with a branch in Ramallah ) and his wife works.... My initial feeling is that his connection with Israel is sincere."

Attorney Rosenblatt mentioned the "illegal stay" of the petitioner several times. Tsemel objected: This argument has not come up until now. My client entered legally and was born here and you know that it's his right to be here. In principle, said Rosenblatt, "he can leave the court and be arrested by a policeman because he's an illegal sojourner." And Tsemel: "In principle he can leave the court and be arrested because he's an Arab."

Solberg tried to calm things down. He said he was actually seeking a compromise. Let the petition be erased, he suggested, and let Dr. Hammada ask to begin a proceeding for "family reunification" (with his wife ). The parties had to reply by today. Afterward, next to the stairs, Rosenblatt would explain to Tsemel that it was nothing personal, but that he was operating according to the law.

The 1952 Law of Entry into Israel determines that anyone who is not an Israeli citizen or the holder of an immigrant's permit or immigrant's certificate does not have the right to live in Israel, and his residency in Israel is conditional on a residency permit that has been granted to him according to this law." The Law of Entry was imposed on Palestinians living in that part of the West Bank - East Jerusalem and the surrounding villages - that was annexed to Israel in 1967. "Israel entered us," bitterly say the people to whom the Law of Entry applies, "It wasn't we who entered it." Solberg mentioned that there is logic to the statement that the case of a (non-Jewish ) Frenchman who immigrated to Israel is not the same as the case of a Palestinian who was born in Jerusalem. But it wouldn't be right, he said, to discuss the matter of principle in connection with the present petition.

In addition to the Law of Entry there are regulations for entry into Israel which stipulate that the expiration of the permanent residency permit: A person will be considered to have settled abroad if one of the following conditions exists: he lived outside Israel for a period of at least seven years; he received a permanent residency permit in that country; he received citizenship of that country. One of the three conditions is sufficient to revoke the resident status of a Palestinian in East Jerusalem.

Until the end of 1995, the authorities were flexible and made do with visits by those living abroad at intervals shorter than "seven years of absence" in order to maintain residency. But in December 1995, during the term of Haim Ramon as interior minister in the short-lived government of Shimon Peres, the policy changed. Without previous warning, people who lived abroad but came for frequent visits discovered that their resident status had been revoked. A prolonged public battle - which involved Palestinian, Israeli and international organizations - created pressure that produced results early in 2000, when the interior minister was Natan Sharansky. In a declaration to the Supreme Court, he promised that the policy would revert to the pre-1995 practice. For those living abroad for any reason, their periodic visits would once again maintain their residency, whereas those who had lived abroad in the past (or who were living, for lack of housing, in a part of the West Bank that had not been annexed to Israel ) would get back their residency status if they proved that the center of their lives was in Jerusalem. With the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000, the Interior Ministry resumed mass revocation of the permanent residency status of East Jerusalem Palestinians.

Imad Hammada is one of 289 Jerusalemites whose residency was revoked in 2007. In 2008, the residency of Murad Abu-Khalaf, 33, a native of Ras al-Amud, who has a doctorate in electrical engineering, was revoked. His family lived in the Baka neighborhood in West Jerusalem, from which it was expelled in 1948. The eight pages of his resume include a series of scientific publications, areas of expertise, fields of research, lectures, awards and prestigious places of work. In 2007, he completed his post-doctorate (with a stipend from the research division of the U.S. Army ). He also visited his family periodically. He knew that upon his return it was likely that he would not be hired for work in Israeli firms, and that he would teach at university. "I wanted to get some experience in the professional world outside the university," he said two days ago in a phone conversation from his Boston home.

An engineer in Boston

Since 2007, he has been working as a software engineer in an American firm in Massachusetts, The MathWorks, whose clients are the aircraft industry and security firms, including Israeli ones such as Rafael. The U.S. requires those employed in its security industry to receive a green card. This is not permanent residency for family reasons, or that of an asylum seeker - but for purposes of work only, emphasized Abu-Khalaf in the conversation. "Had I known that a green card would lead to the revocation of my right as a resident of Jerusalem, I would have returned after the post-doctorate. But what could I have done then, without practical experience? Sold falafel?" ...

(3) Palestinian mother and children cannot travel together across Israeli borders

As much as I try to avoid it, the situation inevitably arises from time to time. If I tell people that traveling with my children is a nightmare, most mothers in particular would probably nod their heads understandingly, thinking I am referring to keeping two wayward children under control on an international flight. While that has also been an issue with me like most other mothers, this is not the "nightmare" to which I am referring.

To put it in a nutshell, I cannot leave the country with my two children – aged 10 and 7 – from the same borders. As crazy as this sounds, it is true, courtesy of Israel's complicated and discriminatory system of ID cards among Palestinians. I am one of thousands of people who fall between the cracks – stuck between two oppressive Israeli sets of restrictions for travelling Palestinians, the result of which is that mother and children cannot travel together across Israeli borders.

My two kids were born in Jerusalem (a prerequisite for their eligibility to become Jerusalem residents). I was born in the United States. After the Oslo Accords were signed and the PA made its grand entrance into the West Bank and Gaza, I was also afforded a West Bank Palestinian passport since I had been living in Ramallah for over a decade. When I married, I came to Jerusalem with one Palestinian ID card, one American passport and the hope that Israel would somehow grant me family reunification with my husband, therefore transforming my green (Palestinian ID) to the more coveted blue Jerusalem ID. Of course, this did not happen overnight. To be exact, it took 11 years after which I still have not been granted a Jerusalem ID card but rather a one-year residency permit in Jerusalem (renewable upon security check every 12 months). To travel across checkpoints between Jerusalem and the West bank, I must always carry my permit, which allows me (after a fingerprint check) to cross into the city.

But back to my issue with traveling. Israel bans Palestinians (with Palestinian Authority ID cards) from traveling through its Ben Gurion Airport. On rare occasions, a special permit is given to Palestinians to travel via the airport, but usually only in cases of serious medical conditions. Even then, the process is lengthy and is not guaranteed. You may be given an answer about whether a permit has been issued or not mere hours before your flight; in some cases, even afterwards.

Palestinians, therefore, must leave the country through Jordan via the Allenby Bridge. My children, given that they have neither a Jordanian nor a Palestinian passport, cannot travel from Jordan. I of course, cannot travel from Ben Gurion. So, this is what we do when their father, the original Jerusalemite, is not traveling with us. The first time, I was taking my then much younger kids to the United States to issue them US passports. My father (who only has US citizenship) flew them out of Ben Gurion and met me later that night in Jordan (after I crossed the bridge earlier that day). On the way back, I had my sister, who is also only an American citizen, meet me in Jordan to take the kids back with her to Tel Aviv's airport. I crossed the bridge the second day.

The occasion has arisen once more. I am to fly to Geneva with the two of them in a few days. This time, there is no one to take them out of the country and I do not have the luxury of time to try and convince the Israelis to give me a permit to fly out of the airport. Hence, I am sending them on a flight alone from Ben Gurion (with an escort from the airline) and will meet up with them in Europe. The same goes for their return trip. I, of course, will have the much less enviable task of crossing the bridge to Jordan.

Mine are not the only woes in regards to traveling via Israeli borders. Internationals (especially pro-Palestinian) run the risk of being stamped with a one-month or even one-week visa – or worse, being turned back at the border altogether. Palestinians from Jerusalem and inside Israel are harassed, strip searched and humiliated by Israeli security personnel at the airport, sometimes missing their flight because of the hours-long interrogations. At the Allenby Crossing, Israeli border personnel are known to take people into the "room" where they hold them for hours, interrogate them on where and why they are coming to the country, only to send them packing back to Jordan. No one is immune either. High profile personalities such as Noam Chomsky have been returned at the Allenby Bridge and others such as Norman Finkelstein have been given a five-year ban at Ben Gurion, stamped clearly on their US passports.

Israel's security checks, whether at internal checkpoints inside Palestine or at their international borders are infamously grueling and oftentimes just plain ridiculous. Questions such as "do you have any weapons?" or "did you pack your own bags?" are ones that have obvious answers, at least to those who know Israel's security paranoia. Other questions are equally as ridiculous – "Do you know any Palestinians?", or worse yet if you say you are traveling to Jerusalem, "Do you know any Arabs there?"

In my case, it is not the hassle or the harassment of Israeli security that irks me the most. Our skins have thickened after so many years of enduring such questioning. What disturbs me to no end is the fact that mother and children are not allowed to travel together, that the racist system of segregation Israel has imposed upon Palestinians living under its occupation has been allowed to continue unabated. Freedom of movement, democracy and family unity are principles that Israel may very well embrace, at least for Jewish Israelis. Such things are obviously not for us.

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Department at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mid@miftah.org.

(4) Sephardi children given 35,000 times max dose of x-rays through his head - Barry Chamish
Barry Chamish Newsletter Archives

On August 14, at 9 PM, Israeli television station, Channel Ten, broke all convention and exposed the ugliest secret of Israel's Labor Zionist founders; the deliberate mass radiation poisoning of nearly all Sephardi youths.

The expose began with the presentation of a documentary film called, 100,000 Radiations, and concluded with a panel discussion moderated by TV host Dan Margalit, surprising because he is infamous for toeing the establishment line.

Film Details:

100,000 Radiations, released by Dimona Productions Ltd. in 2003.

Producer - Dudi Bergman
Directors - Asher Khamias, David Balrosen

Panel Discussion Participants

A Moroccan singer was joined by David Edri, head of the Compensation Committee for Ringworm X-Ray Victims, and Boaz Lev, a spokesman for the Ministry Of Health.

Subject:

In 1951, the director general of the Israeli Health Ministry, Dr. Chaim Sheba flew to America and returned with 7 x-ray machines, supplied to him by the American army.

They were to be used in a mass atomic experiment with an entire generation of Sephardi youths to be used as guinea pigs. Every Sephardi child was to be given 35,000 times the maximum dose of x-rays through his head. For doing so, the American government paid the Israeli government 300,000 Israeli liras a year. The entire Health budget was 60,000 liras. The money paid by the Americans is equivalent to billions of dollars today. To fool the parents of the victims, the children were taken away on "school trips" and their parents were later told the x-rays were a treatment for the scourge of scalpal ringworm. 6,000 of the children died shortly after their doses were given, the many of the rest developed cancers that killed them over time and are still killing them now. While living, the victims suffered from disorders such as epilepsy, amnesia, Alzheimer's disease, chronic headaches and psychosis.

Yes, that is the subject of the documentary in cold terms. It is another matter to see the victims on the screen. ie. To watch the Moroccan lady describe what getting 35,000 times the dose of allowable x-rays in her head feels like.

"I screamed make the headache go away. Make the headache go away. Make the headache go away. But it never went away."

To watch the bearded man walk hunched down the street.

"I'm in my fifties and everyone thinks I'm in my seventies. I have to stoop when I walk so I won't fall over. They took my youth away with those x-rays."

To watch the old lady who administered the doses to thousands of children

"They brought them in lines. First their heads were shaved and smeared in burning gel. Then a ball was put between their legs and the children were ordered not to drop it, so they wouldn't move. The children weren't protected over the rest of their bodies. There were no lead vests for them. I was told I was doing good by helping to remove ringworm. If I knew what dangers the children were facing, I would never have cooperated. Never!"

Because the whole body was exposed to the rays, the genetic makeup of the children was often altered, affecting the next generation. We watch the woman with the distorted face explain, "All three of my children have the same cancers my family suffered. Are you going to tell me that's a coincidence?"

Everyone notices that Sephardi women in their fifties today, often have sparse patchy hair, which they try to cover with henna. Most of us assumed it was just a characteristic of Sephardi women. We watch the woman on the screen wearing a baseball-style hat. She places a picture of a lovely young teenager with flowing black hair opposite the lens. "That was me before my treatment. Now look at me." She removes her hat. Even the red henna can't cover the horrifying scarred bald spots

The majority of the victims were Moroccan because they were the most numerous of the Sephardi immigrants. The generation that was poisoned became the country's perpetual poor and criminal class. It didn't make sense. The Moroccans who fled to France became prosperous and highly educated. The common explanation was that France got the rich, thus smart ones. The real explanation is that every French Moroccan child didn't have his brain cells fried with gamma rays.

The film made it perfectly plain that this operation was no accident. The dangers of x-rays had been known for over forty years. We read the official guidelines for x-ray treatment in 1952. The maximum dose to be given a child in Israel was .5 rad. There was no mistake made. The children were deliberately poisoned.

David Deri, makes the point that only Sephardi children received the x-rays.

"I was in class and the men came to take us on a tour. They asked our names. The Ashkenazi children were told to return to their seats. The dark children were put on the bus." ...

Three German-built Israeli submarines equipped with nuclear cruise missiles are to be deployed in the Gulf near the Iranian coastline.

The first has been sent in response to Israeli fears that ballistic missiles developed by Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, a political and military organisation in Lebanon, could hit sites in Israel, including air bases and missile launchers.

The submarines of Flotilla 7 — Dolphin, Tekuma and Leviathan — have visited the Gulf before. But the decision has now been taken to ensure a permanent presence of at least one of the vessels.

The flotilla's commander, identified only as "Colonel O", told an Israeli newspaper: "We are an underwater assault force. We're operating deep and far, very far, from our borders."

Each of the submarines has a crew of 35 to 50, commanded by a colonel capable of launching a nuclear cruise missile.

The vessels can remain at sea for about 50 days and stay submerged up to 1,150ft below the surface for at least a week. Some of the cruise missiles are equipped with the most advanced nuclear warheads in the Israeli arsenal.

The deployment is designed to act as a deterrent, gather intelligence and potentially to land Mossad agents. "We're a solid base for collecting sensitive information, as we can stay for a long time in one place," said a flotilla officer.

The submarines could be used if Iran continues its programme to produce a nuclear bomb. "The 1,500km range of the submarines' cruise missiles can reach any target in Iran," said a navy officer.

Apparently responding to the Israeli activity, an Iranian admiral said: "Anyone who wishes to do an evil act in the Persian Gulf will receive a forceful response from us."

Israel's urgent need to deter the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah alliance was demonstrated last month. Ehud Barak, the defence minister, was said to have shown President Barack Obama classified satellite images of a convoy of ballistic missiles leaving Syria on the way to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, will emphasise the danger to Obama in Washington this week.

Tel Aviv, Israel's business and defence centre, remains the most threatened city in the world, said one expert. "There are more missiles per square foot targeting Tel Aviv than any other city," he said.

Israel recently approached the United States with new requests for security-related purchases, Haaretz has learned. The requests included Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM ) bombs for the Israel Air Force, as well as a significant expansion of the emergency stores held by the U.S. army in Israel.

The Israeli requests were brought up during recent visits to Washington by Defense Minister Ehud Barak and director-general of the Defense Ministry, Udi Shani, and in conversations with senior administration and Congress officials.

The priority list reflects the security threats the defense establishment believes Israel will face in the next few years, i.e. the eventuality of a prolonged war, which would necessitate using the IAF widely to attack many targets, along with ensuring enough spare parts and supplies.

Israel also requested JDAM bombs, seeking to significantly increase the number of such munitions already in its arsenal. The JDAM bombs have been used increasingly in recent operations, including in the Second Lebanon War in 2006 and Operation Cast Lead in 2008.

Israel is also seeking to increase the amount of gear held by the American army in their emergency stores in Israel by 50% - from $800 million to $1.2 billion. The Obama administration placed the stores in Israel in December, as part of a number of steps to improve U.S. assistance to Israeli security. To date, $600 million worth of American emergency equipment has been placed in Israel.

The American stores hold rockets, bombs, aircraft ammunition and armored vehicles, along with other weapons. The gear fully matches equipment already used by the Israel Defense Forces and is cataloged upon arrival to ensure quick and easy access at a time of need, pending permission from the United States. The American move has a dual purpose: bringing military equipment closer to areas in which Americans might need to fight, and assisting the U.S. ally should the need arise.

Senior military sources told Haaretz that the IDF attaches great importance to the stores; in the event of an extensive conflict, considerable time will pass before an airlift of ammunition and spare parts - similar to the one operated during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war - gets under way.

About Me

'Mission statement'.
I am convinced that jewish individuals and groups have an enormous influence on the world. The MSM are, for almost all people, the only source of information, and these are largely controlled by jewish people.
So there is a huge under-reporting on jewish influence in the world.
I see it as my mission to try to close this gap. To quote Henry Ford: "Corral the 50 wealthiest jews and there will be no wars." `(Thomas Friedman wrote the same in Haaretz, about the war against Iraq! See yellow marked area, blog 573)
If that is true, my mission must be very beneficial to humanity.